IBM`s new portal-ready, pay-as-you-go collaborative software cuts time, cost

IBM`s new modular, pay-as-you-go, portal-ready Lotus Workplace collaborative software foreshortens the time needed to get users collaborating either on business applications or corporate portals - boosting productivity in unprecedented time.

It also frees up the 40% of information technology (IT) budgets spent on integrating the various different collaborative technologies associated with individual business applications.

"While they want the benefits of collaboration, most South African organisations are fed up with the limitations of their intranets but haven`t yet progressed to portals," says IBM SA`s WebSphere and Lotus technical sales lead, Mark Mallabone. "The new Lotus Workplace offering solves the problem, by giving them advanced collaborative capability in much less time than it takes to implement a full portal and without the hassle and cost of integrating disparate business applications.

"It`s quick win, with no sacrifice."

Lotus Workplace consolidates collaborative capabilities into a single, integrated view that can be licensed in a `pay as you go` manner. As a result, it very quickly gives organisations e-business on-demand capabilities.

E-mail, instant messaging and Web conferencing take place simultaneously within the same platform, relieving the user of the need to log-off and sign on to different applications to perform different tasks.

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Each Lotus Workplace collaboration component can be customised to fit a specific industry or business need, such as business controls and reporting, retail operations or sales force management.

Lotus Workplace Messaging provides a cost-effective way to extend the reach of messaging infrastructure across the organisation. Standards-based, it integrates easily with a variety of messaging infrastructures - including IBM Lotus Domino, as well as with portals, browsers, standards-based e-mail clients and other Lotus Workplace products. It can be used for mail only or with other functions such as personal calendaring.

IBM Lotus Workplace Team Collaboration seamlessly blends the synchronous capabilities of instant messaging (including presence awareness) and Web conferencing with the asynchronous capabilities of team spaces (including discussion forums and document management). It is designed to help streamline IT management and administration, centralise and reduce IT costs and minimise user complexity. It enables all types of users to gain instant access to the right people and information, virtually bring together geographically dispersed team members and help improve productivity overall.

IBM Lotus Workplace Collaborative Learning helps streamline the management of an organisation`s classroom-based and e-learning programmes, resources and course materials - allowing organisations to address their ongoing training requirements in a cost-efficient, timely manner. It is an open, scalable, standards-compliant suite of software modules that delivers learning resources to groups of students wherever they are located and keeps track of their activities and performance.

IBM Lotus Workplace Web Content Management is based on technology acquired through IBM`s acquisition of Aptrix. It gives customers the ability to quickly and easily create, publish, manage and archive Web-based content within a company`s intranet, extranet and Internet environments. It addresses growing customer demand for flexible, integrated solutions that combine portal, collaboration and content technology in a single platform.